A rchive Date
[ 01-05-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Jordan ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/04/30/76579-ap.html
Skeptical Arabs say the peace initiative is 'another American ploy'
By JAMAL HALABY
Wed, April 30, 2003
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - Arabs reacted with skepticism Wednesday to a new Middle East peace plan backed by the United States, calling it a political move that favours Israel and U.S. postwar interests.
"The road map is for Israel's benefit, to ensure security and peace for the Jews, not the Palestinians," said Mahmoud Abu-Taha, a resident of an Amman camp for Palestinian refugees. Many refugees say the plan, called a "road map," falls short of guaranteeing their return.
"It's another American ploy which completely disregards our rights in Jerusalem and the right of refugees to return home," said Abu-Taha, who was 10 years old when he fled his West Bank home town in the 1967 Middle East war.
"The road map will not take me back to my country," said Ahmad Zaatar, a Palestinian truck driver living at a camp in southern Lebanon.
The plan is an idea embraced by the United States and developed with the European Union, the United Nations and Russia. It envisions an independent Palestinian state in 2005.
The concept was presented to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas after Abbas was sworn in Wednesday.
In Egypt, Abdel Halem Qandel, editor in chief of the opposition al-Araby newspaper, said the peace plan "will satisfy the maximum demands for Israelis and the minimum for the Palestinians."
"The purpose of the road map is for America to give the impression that there is a kind of justice somewhere," he said.
Others were even harsher in dismissing the plan, likening it to a bribe to Arabs to forget the war against Iraq.
"After destroying Iraq, it's normal that the destruction of Palestinians will follow," said Muhanad Darwazeh, a 26-year-old sales agent who said the plan was really a "roadmap for greater Israel."
Jamil Abu-Bakr, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement, Jordan's most powerful opposition group, said the plan was "a bribe to Arabs to let bygones be bygones over the American aggression on Iraq." The brotherhood movement advocates Israel's annihilation.
But Hamdah Fara'neh, a former member of Jordan's Parliament and a member of the Palestinian National Council, was hopeful for peace, saying the plan "forms a realistic ground for both parties, Israel and the Palestinians, to achieve their final aspirations."
He said the Palestinians must stop the armed struggle and Israelis have to stop settlements until the two sides can establish trust.
Fara'neh also said the United States "has to be serious in implementing the content of the road map through establishing a state on the historic Palestinian land."
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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